Friday, September 20, 2013

Cosmocking: September '13!

Pink cover! Nina Dobrev! Which is odd because the main interview/profile (which is almost always the person on the cover) is with Rebel Wilson! I guess they didn't think Rebel Wilson was cover material because she's clearly too fat to be glamorous! "Mind Blowing Sex Moves You've Never Tried Before!" God, I hope they really are, because that means they'll be hilarious! I can't work with Cosmo when they just do shit like "amazing newly-discovered sex secret: touch his penis!"

During sex, she asked me if I would say "Parsons," which is where she went to college. I thought it was weird, but because I was drunk, I went with it. Then she asked me to say "Park the car in the Harvard Yard"--she said my Boston accent turned her on! So I continued to say random sentences for her.

The sex must've been pretty damn good, because most Bostonians will flip you off if you start "PAAHHHK THE CAHHHH"ing at them.

(Then again, I'm a hypocrite, because I still think it's funny to make Rowdy say "roof" and "bag." Not in bed though. Although I did once sleep with a different guy from the Upper Midwest and he said "ooh jeez, ooh jeez, OOOH JEEZ" the whole time. This has nothing to do with Cosmo. I just really wanted to tell that story.)

Take some sexy fabric with you when you two travel together, and use it to make a normal hotel look like a love motel.

Sexy... fabric? If this were about sexy sheets, I'd sort of get that. But it's not sheets. You just bring some, like, red satin with you and tack it up to the headboard. Okay.

Man, and some people think condoms interrupt the spontaneity of sex. I hope they end up with partners who want to stop to reupholster the room first.

Fifty Shades of Grey has made its mark abroad: Light BDSM is the most popular sex trend in the world right now.

I'm writing in extreme detail what I think of Fifty Shades of Grey, so I won't get into that here. But god, I hate that phrase "light BDSM." Or "light bondage." Places like Cosmo always use it to mean "acceptable BDSM that is for normal people and not weird degenerate freaks." I'm not sure what makes it that way.

Mostly it seems to involve keeping yourself pure by staying ignorant of good technique or safety measures. Negotiating and then tying someone up with hemp rope and two-column ties and safety shears is heavy freaky BDSM; surprising your partner by tying them up with a slipknot in a silk scarf is--by Cosmo standards--light BDSM.

Q: Sex with my boyfriend has become meh. How can I talk to him about improving it

A: Having a serious conversation can be overkill. Take action instead.

Yeah, because if you talked about this, it would be a challenge you had to work on together! But this way, it's something he can be oblivious to while you bust your ass trying to "spice things up"! Of course, there is the slight drawback that if there's an actual reason your sex life has changed, you're never going to know it; you'll just grow gradually more resentful that he isn't responding to your efforts. But that's a small price to pay for not having to take the massive, drastic step of communicating with your partner.

Q: I was having sex with a guy I've been hooking up with, and he said to me, "I don't want you doing this with anyone else." Is he asking me to be exclusive?

Yes. Yes, that is what those words mean.

Although he's not offering to be exclusive himself, so unless you have a well-negotiated intentionally asymmetrical relationship, and I can absolutely guarantee you do not, he's being kind of a double-standardy asshole.

Q: My fiancé is sensitive to my needs and always makes sure I have an orgasm. But sometimes, I wish he would just push me down and have his way with me. He was like this once, after we went out and had a few drinks, and it was amazing. How do I get him to do that again

A: Uh, was that the only time the two of your ever got drunk together? Because it sounds like getting drunk together worked pretty well. Whether you're drinking or not, I'd recommend going out wearing a hot dress or skirt and whispering to him at some point that you're not wearing any underwear. It'll build up his anticipation until it explodes back home. You can also, you know, tell him what you want.

So, basically you should try and entice him to attack you, as men are compelled to do to women in sexy clothing who are drunk. Gahhh.

I do like that Cosmo finally raises the possibility of communicating, though. Maybe they should have put that before the "drive his animal side so wild that he'll want to hurt you and have no idea you're actually enjoying it!"

the Footsie Roll: Place the condom securely on the tip with your hands, then lean back and balance on your forearms. Place your feet on either side of his penis, and gently roll the condom down with your big toes.

This is going to go down really, really differently depending on how he feels about feet. You might want to check on that first.

[on women's dating profile pictures] The World Traveler: On a camel, on the top of a mountain, on a beach, on a boat... I admire the adventurous spirit, but will I ever be able to keep up with her? Is she ever at home? What's she running away from--him?

Women who take vacations: clearly fleeing a dark past. You heard it here first, folks.

Gems with organic components (pearls) have non-zero nutrition (but pretty close to zero, anyway, especially if swallowed whole), one might be able to scratch some nutrition from diamonds before they puncture your guts, anything else ranges from useless at best to mildly poisonous at worst... :) And OT, but relevant - simply saying to attack may not work - in my case I would be too afraid to do permanent damage unless my inhibitions were lowered somehow (never tried to drink).

Diamonds have calories in the "energy of chemical decomposition" sense, but absolutely zero in the nutritional sense, because your intestines have no enzymes for diamond. Pearls ditto; although they originate in an edible mollusc, they're made of calcium carbonate, which is just not something your body can use for energy.

Anon on 9/21, 10:50AM: Sure, simply saying to attack may not be enough. Not disputing that her partner may need other things to work through fears, inhibitions, reservations, etc. he may have. (And maybe he's just not into it! Though the fact that he went there once may be encouraging.)

But saying to attack is a necessary first step. Otherwise, the advice becomes "get him to act aggressively and selfishly without knowing that you're into that and want it. Get him to disregard your well-being and consent". The assumption that this is behavior you would want your partner to be capable of/engage in is terrifying. The assumption that all men will act that way if you just get them drunk and put a sexily dressed woman in front of them is both rape-apologist BS and insulting to men.

Yeah, pretty much.Also, *insisting* on making sure his partner has an orgasm can also be *insisting* on prooving to himself that he's a "good lover" (seE: "I hear girls like orgasm, too") and/or *insisting* (in the case of my ex-husband) that what's he's doing isn't actually sexual assault.

As one of the many, many people who have trouble having orgasms sometimes, this attitude horrifies me. If my partner wants to give me an orgasm every time, I am under pressure to have one every time, whether my body's going to cooperate or not. It's a fast route to stressful and unsatisfying sex.

Or sometimes you can get there, but you gotta do it on your own/with the help of a toy. My current main squeeze is very cool with that, but the one before him, oy. He used to brood over the fact that I didn't come from penetration alone, and if it happened to be a difficult night for me to get off from oral, he'd sulk. If I suggested playing with my vibrator, even if he was the one wielding it...well, that wasn't received well.

I am SO glad I don't have the relationships that cosmo presumes standard.

So glad.

I am so happy that instead I get to be a person who dates people and we do things together and try to make each other happy.

Although, at one point I was the person who wanted a dom and didn't know I could ask for it so I tried dating douchebags to try and approximate the behavior of 'humiliates and uses me during sex,' but you find out fairly quickly that it's the other part, 'but also values me and only does that because they know I like it' that makes the first part really fun. I hope that girl in the question eventually gets to have that.

The "sexy fabric" thing: Actually, I've seen this recommended elsewhere (I think it was Lee Harrington?) Basically, bring stuff along so you can hide the huge TV that hotels seem to insist on including in every room. If you're not one for having a tv in the bedroom (I'm not) it can be nice to have the option of making it go away, even if you can't actually unbolt it from the dresser and move it.

i don't have a problem with the term "light bdsm" or "light bondage". I use them to mean like, tying someone's arms up with a belt or hitting them a little while having sex like normal, rather than any kind of planned scene or complicated setup.

To me "light bdsm" always reads as beginner-level - the kind of stuff you'd be doing to introduce a newbie. You know, starting off with blindfolds and tied wrists instead of jumping straight to suspension or a total power exchange. The bunny slopes of kink, if you will.

My friends and I used to buy copies and read the terrible sex tips to each other over lunch. One of my favs was "tell him 'you're so hot my skin is melting.'" Shit, why did I date magma man?!

I also remember one from FHM or something that suggested putting beads or marbles in the condom(with your dick) if ribbed just "wasn't enough for her." I just... what? Isn't that a really really bad idea?

Maybe small beads. Although that would still be more annoying-hilarious than hot, and probably not good for the integrity of the condom.

...Wait, how would you even set that up? You'd have to put the condom on your dick and then start stuffing them in next to the base and, like, massage them down into place? Or maybe put them in the tip of the condom first and then put it on and then sort of rub them all downwards while trying not to get a bead up your urethra? Either way, it doesn't strike me as a sexy activity.

Yeah, I've read about those (the first one I read was the guy with the aquarium tubing and the garden wire).

My favourite is the guy who got a vibrator stuck up his anus; not because of what happened, but because his reaction to it was to livetweet what was happening (his twitter icon was the mascot for my favourite game series, which made it funnier) and comment on the long life of Duracell batteries.

Having known/played with a guy who masturbated with household objects in his urethra (handle of a spoon, pen, etc), I'm not surprised by the link... not even surprised by possibly dangerous pokey things (garden wire) being used... but I'm utterly baffled by how stupid -- like Darwin-awards stupid -- someone could be to stick something so difficult to retrieve up there, such as a marble. Or a battery. That *corrodes* -- oh man.

I would have stopped that "I don't want you doing this with anyone else" guy in mid thrust. Re: "Uh, wait, what? Please tell me you aren't asking me to be exclusive like this, and if I can't get none elsewhere, neither can you, buster."

The phrase "light bondage" or, even worse, "light fantasy bondage" makes me want to punch myself in the face, and I've never been exactly able to articulate why. Like, conversations about it kind of tended to devolve into me flailing my arms and making inarticulate ragey noises. So thank you, you perfectly nailed it here.

(These phrases are used a lot by sex toy manufacturers try to market very pretty, not very functional, potentially very unsafe things like over-the-door restraints made of very slippery silk that basically can't be used without tightening around the bottom's wrists.)

I see the point in the mainstream media context, but it's useful to be able to talk about "light bondage" in a kink-fluent environment... it's a reasonable way to communicate we're not talking about 45 minutes of intricate ropework when discussing a scene. Obviously there's further variation to negotiate, but still useful.

Although, eating mega quantities of carrots can affect the pigment of some people's skin with an orange hue. Maybe diamonds as an alternative to carrots so you don't accidentally overdo that spray tan...

Uh... I don't know what hemp-rope looks like where you're from, but...No, no, NO, please, don't. The hemp rope we have 'round here is extremely rough and will give you real nasty rope-burn even if you just use it for rope skipping.I wouldn't want to even imagine being tied up with that stuff. I'd advise, if you want to tie someone up, go for something synthetic, like the stuff used for mountain-climbing. Because that, at least, is manufactured in a way that allows for it to slide on skin without hurting. And it's manufactured to be tied in knots and then untied again, while hemp rope (again, 'round here), is mostly intended to not be un-knotted again...

However, if rupe-burn is what you're aiming for or hemp rope is smoother around yours, go for it, I guess.

The rope in the first link, from what I can tell, is the same make as the stuff we have for rope skipping. I mean, it has those little... hairs? that natural types of rope have and that's what leaves me with either rope-burn or just really nasty abrasions.

I don't know exactly how he does it, but I've played with Monk's rope and similar types and it's processed to be much softer than the kind of hemp rope you'd use to tie up a package. The little hairs are more like fuzz than bristle.

I think the thing is that hemp can be made into lots of different types of fabric/fibres (because it's awesome). I always think of the very very rough stuff, but you can get very fine, soft, almost silky hemp used in clothing too.

The FAQ mentions a week-long conditioning process that uses vegan-friendly oils. I've found conditioned hemp rope (n=2, probably different vendors but I don't know which ones) to be very comfortable and not at all bristly.

I've conditioned hemp rope myself. Among other things, I burned the prickliest bits off and worked oil/grease into it. It still smells a bit barnyardy (not unusual for relatively raw hemp or linen) but it feels very nice.

"Negotiating and then tying someone up with hemp rope and two-column ties and safety shears is heavy freaky BDSM; surprising your partner by tying them up with a slipknot in a silk scarf is--by Cosmo standards--light BDSM."

Wow, eep. I have never thought it it that way, but that is definitely a thing. Like how you said in your 'what do you want' article, doing something 'officially' feels like making this whole transgressive decision, commitment to 'the other side', crossing a line - but if you're just playing around, it's just a slightly wild story. But that makes it so much more likely someone will get hurt, because the 'official' stuff is there for a *reason*.

(Also, the phrase "Light BDSM is the most popular sex trend in the world right now." is really weird to me, because as far as I can tell, 'light BDSM' can basically be used to describe every single 'you can casually do this in bed' activity that is something other than 'touch erogenous parts of our bodies to hands/mouths/other erogenous parts'.)

I'm surprised you didn't talk about the pose they have Nina D. in. Like, holy crap where did her spine go?! It makes me think of http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/ they look at comic book poses for women and how often these poses are physically impossible if you have a normal skeletal system.

Still, it makes me sad that they skipped Rebel, seems fishy or rather fat-phobic.

I know talking about the photoshop disaster that is every Cosmo cover is getting utterly overdone, but... never mind her spine, what is with that freakishly elongated arm?!

And utter sadface about them snubbing Rebel Wilson. I love her so much. I am a bit thrilled at the linked covers on the other magazines (the Glamour one is especially gorgeous), but only a bit thrilled, because they still felt the need to crop most of her body out. Because heaven knows we can't show an unskinny body on a magazine cover! What do you mean, some people would find it hotter than the skinny people usually featured? Pishposh!

(Not trying to imply that the existence of fat bodies is only justified if someone finds them hot. But the fact that fat bodies can be attractive, and are attractive, to many people, is so utterly ignored out of existence that I feel it bears mentioning.)

A friend of mine sent me a year's subscription as a joke Christmas present, so I've seen this issue. It really irritated me that they shortchanged Rebel Wilson too. Having gotten the past year's issues, I noticed that this is the only time this year they've had two profile-style interviews - they sort of shoehorned Nina Dobrev's in with a fashion spread - and I can't think why the most formulaic magazine in the world would change it up if not to avoid putting a fat woman on the cover. They also had exactly one picture with the Rebel Wilson interview where they ordinarily would do a whole shoot.Because no one wants to look at fatties, amirite? And no one will notice if we use an awkward method of getting a skinny woman on the cover if she's showing enough cleavage.

Sounds like an intern that is forced to always go with the "It's the cosmo-way"-kind-of-advice and sneaks in this one frustrated personal opinion. At least, that is my head canon.In any way, that single line made me wonder for a second if the cursive print is actually your part and I've just been getting it wrong. It just comes off as very cynical.

This is narcissistic and a bit of a stretch, so I didn't put this theory up top, but... sounds like me. The condescending "you know" is a verbal tic I've used a million times on this blog. I certainly have no exclusive claim on that very common phrase, I just, you know, like to entertain the fantasy that I made a difference.

I definitely assumed initially that it was a comment you'd added. It does sound oddly snarky for the magazine, presenting it as self-evident and obvious when they've also got content instructing you not to communicate verbally with your partner. Weird. I like ruolbu's intern theory.

I don't remember which post I originally commented on, but the new Cosmo website has actually been really entertaining? Particularly this writer, Anna Breslaw.http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/advice/he-wants-to-come-on-you

The Anna Breslaw article is not entertaining; it's depressing. She tells us, "It always surprises me how many people consider getting a cumshot to the face anti-feminist because it signifies degradation. Those people aren’t feminists, they’re just judgmental." Um, what?

I get it that she's saying, "hey, if you're ok with this -- if you've negotiated it and you're comfortable -- go ahead and do it. And don't do it if you're not." ...but dragging judgey feminism into this after admitting "facials" are porn-inspired -- REALLY?

...First off, you know people can negotiate ahead of time, right? "Hey, is it okay if I surprise you by tying your arms sometimes?" is legit. I don't like the idea that all surprise is bad. (Also, lots of folks have rape fantasies that can be somewhat acted out by determining what is/isn't okay, safewords, etc ahead of time, not right before/during the actual sexual situation. It's a trust thing, too.) If I had to negotiate every time I had sex with my boyfriend, we'd be bored to tears.

Also, complicated ties take forever. My boyfriend finds them boring. So yes, slipknot with a silk scarf can be legit if you're looking for a certain sexy look and you don't want to take 20 minutes to set up.